


Finding Gracie

by allthebeautifulthings9828



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, BAMF Castiel, BAMF Dean, Building a New World, Carpenter Sam, Castiel Loves Dean, Deaf Character, Dean Has PTSD - Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Dean Loves Castiel, Declarations Of Love, Depressed Dean, Depression, Domestic Fluff, Dystopia, Emotional Baggage, Emotional Constipation, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Falling In Love, Farmer Sam, Female Castiel, Female Castiel/Male Dean Winchester, Fluff, Gen, Genderfluid Castiel, Humor, Hunter Castiel, Hunter Dean, Love, M/M, Magic, Mark of Cain, Post-Episode: s10e23 My Brother's Keeper, Post-Mark of Cain, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Pregnancy, Pregnant Castiel, Sam in Love, Saving the World, Sex, Sexual Content, Smut, Spells & Enchantments, The Darkness - Freeform, Witchcraft
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-03
Updated: 2016-04-27
Packaged: 2018-04-05 06:12:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 21,435
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4168995
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/allthebeautifulthings9828/pseuds/allthebeautifulthings9828
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Darkness sweeps across the world like a storm larger than anyone imagined. Survivors rise in the aftermath to find two-thirds of the planet’s population gone, leaving them to build a new society in agriculture without manpower for industrialized cities. Weary of hunting, Sam joins the new leadership and builds a farm in the fertile earth of Kansas where all Winchesters will have everlasting, permanent roots. Meanwhile, Dean and Castiel find it impossible to be separated and their love grows as they fight The Darkness to make the new world safe. Castiel, no longer subject to Heaven’s rule, begins to understand his genderfluid nature. He wants to discover life as a female for just a little while. Dean initially resists the drastic change but can’t lose Castiel again, so they find a witch who can alter his body into a female. Soon they feel a strong desire to have a child, to give their family hope for the future. While Dean and Castiel fight The Darkness, they commit their lives and work through the ins and outs of pregnancy together. Little do they know, their little baby girl is prophesied to save the world, not them. But will Castiel choose to remain female forever? Dean doesn’t think so.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: Me playing with Castiel as genderfluid with a magical twist does not mean he/she will be unrecognizable. Castiel’s internal character will remain absolutely the same. You’ll recognize Castiel whether male or female.
> 
> Second Disclaimer: All tags will make sense as the story progresses.

"Is he gonna make it?" Dean resisted hugging himself as he asked the question, choosing instead to rub his temple.

Nodding, Sam wiped his hands on a filthy rag that didn't do much good. "Looks like it worked." He slapped an antiquated spellbook shut in passing. "He's pretty confused and he's asking where you are. I didn't know how you wanted me to handle that, so I only said you're waiting out here."

The blank spot on Dean's forearm remained completely void of sensation and it brought a fresh wave of uneasiness as he glanced at the door to one of the many unoccupied bunker bedrooms. Castiel sat in there recovering from a particularly nasty spell Rowena had put on him, probably thinking Dean was still under the Mark of Cain's control. He absently rubbed his naked forearm and remembered how savagely he'd beat Castiel just a few weeks before. Then suddenly, Death was gone, the Mark was gone, and he couldn't begin to process what was happening outside. All around them, the bunker rattled and shuddered under the assault of terrifying blackness. It all happened so fast. If the bunker strained under the pressure, he could only assume the black clouds sweeping the globe were causing mass destruction.

Sam came up behind Dean and rested a hand on his shoulder. They hadn't even begun to touch the fight they'd had before the Mark disappeared in a burst of white-hot lightning, yet there he was, still being his brother. Dean didn't deserve that kindness even if the evils he'd committed were because of the Mark driving his every whim. He certainly didn't deserve Castiel asking for him either.

"Can't seem to get my feet moving," Dean admitted with a sputtering, nervous chuckle. "There's no way either of you really want me around now."

"C'mon," replied Sam, taking him by the elbow.

The younger Winchester brother assumed the role of the older brother in charge once again as he ushered Dean into the bedroom. Dean's stomach flipped, both fearful and hungry since his diet had been terrible under the Mark's influence. He couldn't stop his mind from racing through nonsensical things either.

Sitting on the edge of the bed, back turned to the door, Castiel was stripped of his armor. The tan overcoat lay on a chair in the far corner of the room as if it had been thrown in haste. Dean wondered just how bad the spell had been if both Sam and Castiel looked both haunted and weakened. His brother pushed him into the room with a hand between his shoulderblades and he stumbled over his own shoes. Spinning, he threw an irritated glare over his shoulder but Sam only waved him toward Castiel and pulled the door shut.

The commotion attracted Castiel's attention. He looked back at Dean through exhausted blue eyes widened by ... what ... was that fear? Before Dean could say a word, the angel hopped to his feet and crushed him in an embrace, bringing to mind the way Dean had hugged him in Purgatory.

"You're different," Castiel said quietly. He pulled back and studied Dean's eyes--a little unnerving in such close proximity--and then he snatched the forearm. "Where is it?"

"Gone," replied Dean. "I ... I think I did something really bad."

Castiel's eyes narrowed and his brows lowered.

"Death ... uhm ... I summoned Death to kill me. He showed up and told me about the Mark, why I couldn't die." Acid rose from his stomach. Dean paused and shook back the unhelpful emotions boiling inside, which had been barricaded by the Mark for more than a year.

"What did he say?" probed Castiel. The gentleness in his tone, probably undetectable to other ears, bothered Dean as he still seemed to desire punishment.

"It's funny," he began, even though it wasn't. "I remember it word for word. He said, 'Before there was light, before there was God and the archangels there wasn't nothing--there was the Darkness. A horribly destructive amoral force that was beaten back by God and his archangels in a terrible war. God locked the Darkness away where it could do no harm, and he created a Mark that would serve as both lock and key, which he entrusted to his most valued lieutenant, Lucifer. But the Mark began to assert its own will, revealed itself as a curse and began to corrupt. Lucifer became jealous of Man, God banished Lucifer to Hell, Lucifer passed the Mark to Cain, who passed the Mark to you, the proverbial finger in the dyke.' And then he explained that he'd remove me from the playing field if I killed Sam because Sam will always try to find a way to bring me back. I lured Sam to where we were but ... uh ... it didn't go as planned."

"Clearly not if Sam is still here and removed Rowena's spell from me," Castiel pointed out, stating the obvious, but not maliciously so.

Dean swallowed back more of the acid taste rising in his stomach. "Death gave me his scythe to take Sam out and ... shit, Cas, he just sat there letting me do it ... but I couldn't. He had pictures of Mom and us and it ... it got to me. I couldn't go through with it but the Mark had me. I swung...." His eyes fell shut but the memories wouldn't fade.

"You swung...? At what?" Sensing the imbalance, it seemed, Castiel grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him. "Dean, what did you do?"

"I swung at Death. He crumbled into ash and disappeared."

The news hit Castiel hard enough to push him down to sitting on the bed again and he stared into the middle ground at nothing in particular as he tried to make sense of it. Dean remembered the questions of who was older--Death or God--so Castiel probably couldn't imagine existence without one or the other. The consequences had only begun to reveal themselves. The thing Death had called The Darkness battered away at everything outside like the worst hurricane anyone ever imagined.

"Death ceases to exist," Castiel muttered to himself, "but the reapers are still out there. The cycle of human life should remain uninterrupted for now at least."

"Cas."

Blue eyes lifted to Dean's face.

He sighed. "A few seconds after Death disappeared, so did the Mark. It shot out of me like lightning. It broke through the ceiling at the bar and then everything went to shit after that. Don't you hear it out there?"

"Yes," he said. "We're trapped here, aren't we?"

"I think it's The Darkness. I think Death wasn't bullshitting me when he said the Mark was like a lock and key keeping The Darkness stashed away somewhere. Sammy and I made a run for my car right when these black spouts exploded from the ground. It was like huge clouds but thicker and ... like ... intelligent. It knew what it was doing and now everything's going to hell in a handbasket out there." Impulsively, Dean sat next to Castiel and found his courage again. "Cas, I gotta fix this. I gotta know everything you know about The Darkness."

The eyes looking over at him hadn't lost their dark shades of fear, while other shades of shock and awe crept in as well. "Dean," he said ominously, "I'm not an archangel. I never knew there was such a thing as The Darkness. At this moment, you know more than I do because you've seen it."

Dean felt the color bleed away from his face. The rattling, roaring echoes beyond the bunker walls pounded away even louder as the awful truth settled between them, sitting together on the bed. Something substantial and massive hit the outside wall on the other side of the residential wing, making Dean jump, startled. He gazed toward the terrible sound and imagined something as large as a truck getting swept off the highway and slammed into the bunker.

"People are dying out there. I did this," he said, going numb.

A warm hand slid into his, linking them together. Dean peered down just as Castiel's long fingers slid between each of Dean's touch, work-worn fingers and folded tightly around his palm. It was a forgiving, accepting touch that Dean thought maybe he should back away from but the starvation for affection ran too deep. He couldn't let go. Castiel reached over with his other hand and rubbed the rounded curve of Dean's thick shoulder, offering the silent support that threatened to shatter his inner resolve. Burning tears edged his ducts and it took everything he had to swallow down his remorse, especially when he thought of the bloody damage he'd done to that very forgiving creature.

"I'm sorry, Cas," he whispered hoarsely, averting his eyes. He was sorry for all of it but he couldn't articulate the regret without sending himself into a mental breakdown.

"I know, Dean," murmured Castiel. "I wouldn't be here if I didn't have faith in you."

"Why?" he replied, more defeated by Castiel's faith than his rejection.

"Because I love you and I know you're going to continue helping your fellow man. I have no home now, except here, and I'm going to help you."

Dean heard the words but they didn't sink in immediately. His head swiveled around and he found Castiel leaning up against his shoulder as if he needed support just as much. Even so, Dean lacked the words to respond to such a casual confession with any kind of eloquence. Did Castiel know what he said? Did he understand what it meant? Dean studied his eyes, searching for some hidden motivation, but he realized it was more on him in that moment. Not letting go of Castiel's hand, not getting up, and not running away certainly meant something.

"Cas--"

"Guys!" Sam exploded into the room looking wild and unhinged.

Jumping to his feet, Dean instantly regretted moving away as if he was ashamed to let his brother see Castiel holding his hand.

It didn't even register for Sam, however. "C'mon, we gotta go deeper in the bunker. I can't see anything on the surveillance monitors anymore. Everything outside's blacked out and I'm worried the western wall exposed to the brunt of The Darkness is gonna start to buckle."

"It's like a fucking hurricane," muttered Dean.

"Yeah, except I think it's global. TV stations are getting knocked out one by one. I was just flipping through trying to find news and they're calling it a megastorm. I even saw a guy on MSNBC say it's every man for himself." As he spoke, Sam seemed jittery and damn near terrified but he kept it together enough to hustle Dean and Castiel through the bunker stairwells. "I think the garage is the best place. It's deep in the hill, it's encased in cement, and all the vehicles are safe."

"My baby?" Dean tossed a glance back at his brother.

"I moved her to the garage corner cut deepest into the hill," assured Sam.

The three of them settled in for a long, tense night. Not one of them understood what battered away at the world outside their bunker but they each agreed that The Darkness was a massive intelligent entity rather than a natural disaster. God, Castiel reasoned, would never have waged an entire full-scale war with the archangels on something that could have been controlled with a thought. Only in intelligent and witty based in the darkest corner of evil could force God to engage it on a celestial battlefield, so to speak.

Castiel's lack of knowledge about The Darkness worried Dean more than anything, not that he said so. For most of the night, he kept quiet. He didn't think he had the right to debate and speculate about the thing that his actions caused to be unleashed on the planet.

Buy three in the morning, The Darkness still raged and took out its fury on humanity. It showed no signs of letting up even though it had been something like nine hours if Dean estimated right. His watch had stopped measuring time at the moment the Mark of Cain bolted out of his soul. He found an antique football helmet from somewhere around the 1940s and carefully picked his way upstairs to the bunker kitchen in search of sustenance for he and his brother. The angel, of course, the one who said he loved that damaged hunter, desired nothing to eat.

"How many people are we talking about here? How many do you think are gonna die because of this?" Dean finally asked over a can of baked beans a little while after making his way down to the garage again. The three of them sat cross-legged in a circle on the floor.

Sam bristled under the implications of the question. "I don't think we should speculate right now. We just gotta stay alive 'til this blows over, whatever it is."

"Stay alive, exactly," Dean snapped. "That's what all those innocent people out there are thinking right now before their skulls get smashed in by flying debris! Hell, this thing could be feeding on souls for all we know! Seven billion souls out on a buffet for this thing to get bigger a bigger and eat Heaven, Hell, Purgatory, Earth, and who knows what else! You know who's fault it is? Mine. Forever."

A soothing hand touched Dean's forearm. "Dean, you're spiraling. Slow down."

Castiel's touch jerked Dean out of his freakout--he didn't know what else to call it--and he turned, looking into cool blue eyes. It slowly brought him down again. He released a dark sigh, letting his head drop low with his arms encircled around his drawn up knees.

"Whatever happens," began Sam calmly, "and whatever we find out there when we open the bunker again, we're sticking together and we're working the problem together. We're not going down without a fight. Deal?"

"This is my home now," said Castiel for the second time that night.

"Dean?" asked Sam.

"Yeah," he muttered. "I don't have a choice. I don't trust myself alone anymore."

"You will learn to care for yourself again," promised Castiel, "and that'll come through helping me return The Darkness to where it belongs. I don't know how we'll do it or what it even is yet but if anybody can lock it up again once and for all, it's us."

Hearing his faith still made Dean uneasy but he began sorting through his jumbled emotions inch by inch. The Mark of Cain had numbed everything so thoroughly for so long that he realized basic emotions were overwhelming his senses. As he looked at Castiel, he found a comrade there, a partner, a soulmate--someone who understood being devoid of emotion and then getting slammed with all of them once more like flipping on a lightswitch. That, he realized, was why Castiel and Sam being so forgiving frightened him so much. He craved the forgiveness and support but he had no idea how to articulate it anymore. He craved what Castiel offered up in the empty bedroom too. Learning to feel again for Dean was going to be like learning to walk again after a horrible car accident.

"Are you sticking with us?" Sam asked, breaking Dean's thoughts. "We're better for protecting innocent people and ourselves if we stick together and stop hiding things."

Slowly, Dean nodded. "Yeah. Yeah, Sammy, I'm here. And Cas, yeah ... I'm with you." He stared pointedly into Castiel with those last few words.

"Team Free Will rides again," said Sam, leaning back on his elbow and crossing his ankles with a casual flare bordering on egotism. "I'll never forget that, you know. During the apocalypse. It was the three of us against the universe back then too and Dean, you called us Team Free Will. Remember that?"

A faint smile lifted Dean's cheeks. "Seems like a hundred years ago."

"Billions were supposed to die then too," Castiel pointed out. "Don't lose hope. Humanity has taught me repeatedly just how resilient a species it is. Even if The Darkness consumes many of your kind, I know you'll rebuild and come back stronger. The Black Plague comes to mind. Millions died in such a short time that people thought it was the end of the world. When the dust settled, the survivors began rebuilding society. The Black Death gave birth to the Renaissance."

"Life always finds a way," Sam agreed with a definite nod.

"Now if we can just survive The Darkness blowing all over us," said Dean, glancing up at the rumbling structure of the bunker protecting them from certain death.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: All tags will make sense as the story progresses.

Two days of being trapped in the bunker garage did little to improve Dean's anxiety. Not once did the destruction let up in more than forty-eight hours. None of them had seen a moment of sunlight since The Darkness ruptured the earth and swarmed over all of humanity.

"Here. You need to eat again." Castiel shoved a Tupperware bowl of canned beef stew into Dean's hands and sat cross-legged on the floor beside him. "I tried cooking it in a pot on the stove until I realized it was already cooked and only needed warming up." He watched Dean expectantly as if he worried about whether the food was any good.

Dean tucked into the stew without hesitation. "I forget I'm hungry 'til I smell food. Then I get crazy." He shoveled another mouthful into his face. "Thanks."

"You hadn't eaten for months. It'll take a while for your body to regain normal human composition and strength," replied Castiel.

"You gonna take care of me?" The idea had Dean chuckling around a mouthful of beef.

An earnest, sincere expression smoothed the lines in Castiel's face with the way he nodded. It came out as a joke - another one of Dean's sarcastic quips designed in his subconscious to say one thing but hope for another. Awkwardness descended in his body. He spooned a heaping bite into his mouth so he wouldn't have to say anything until he figured out where he was going with it.

Those forks in the road had been popping up almost by the hour since the night Sam handled the spell to remove Rowena's blackness on Castiel. Something had shifted between the hunter and the angel when they were reunited. Neither of them had actually spoken of the shift, although Dean noticed Castiel's hand lingering on his arm, his back, or once along his waist in passing. Castiel wasn't that suave or experienced but something in Dean's brain nagged at him about his own lack of response even if he wanted to move things along. Fear in romantic matches seemed so foreign to him but, touching on the cliche, he knew it was different with them. He knew once he gave the green light, it would be forever. And he didn't deserve forever with anyone.

"Sammy still asleep?"

Castiel rose up on his knees to peer over the hood of the Impala since Dean had been leaning against the door facing the garage wall for some peace and quiet. Nodding, Castiel said, "The cot is too small for his body. He's on his stomach with one arm and one leg on the floor."

"He always slept through any noise," commented Dean with an absent glance toward sounds of The Darkness battering against the side of the bunker exposed to the elements. He scraped his spoon on the bottom of the Tupperware bowl - still hungry but unwilling to let Castiel go back to the kitchen. "My brother's pretty lucky. I'm still sleeping like shit." Admitting it came easily though, at least in talking to the angel.

"Are you feeling the desire to eat and sleep at all?"

"Yeah, some. Not anywhere close to normal."

"But is there any sign of improvement?"

Thinking about it for a moment, Dean nodded. "Little bit every day."

Castiel nodded. He reached for Dean's forehead and tested his temperature with gentle, folded fingers that slid from his forehead to his cheek. Dean didn't pull away or let a cynical comment hide provide a hiding place. Instead, he closed his eyes and leaned into that touch just a fraction, allowing Castiel to feel his worry and fatigue. It was his self-imposed reward system over the last few days. If he wasn't unusually cruel like the Mark of Cain taught him to be, he'd allow himself to be comforted here and there. Castiel was the one to provide it, which he drank in so gratefully that he couldn't yet speak of it. But only just a few seconds of comfort. That was all he deserved.

The hand slid away, leaving a cold void on Dean's skin, but he didn't open his eyes. A heavy sensation edged in and he remembered what the desire for sleep - good, deep sleep - felt like. Warmth invaded his space, followed by soft lips brushing the corner of his mouth. Though his eyes flashed open, he didn't back away. Castiel hovered close enough that Dean felt body heat radiating through his skin even when he pulled back just enough to look him in the eye. One mouth found the other and lips puzzled together as if they'd been designed to fit that way. Their kiss bled into them with the soft hesitation prone to intimacy rather than a hot prelude to sex. It came across as foreign and untested to Dean but Castiel's fingertips slid along his face, exploring three or four days' worth of stubble. Touching the angel blotted out all sense of light, dark, fear, and sound. He no longer heard The Darkness destroying the world outside of the bunker's doors, nor did he drown in self-loathing and a constant undercurrent of fear anymore. Kissing Castiel in that slow, gentle manner allowed him to float, suspended in peace.

When they parted, Dean found himself unable to look away from blue eyes so bright with renewed life yet so soft with feeling toward him. "You don't want me, Cas. I'm a shit show."

"No, you're not," replied Castiel, "and yes, I do want you as much as you want me."

Dean lifted his brow and let himself form a half-smile. "You're pretty damn sure of yourself."

"I put you back together cell by cell after Hell tried to destroy you. No one knows you better than I do, except maybe your brother." A quick glance over the hood of the Impala seemed to satisfy Castiel that Sam still slept on the tiny cot beside a row of vintage motorcycles. "Now is the time. We're stronger together than we are apart. I feel it in my chest. Don't you, Dean?"

He nodded. The lack of hesitation surprised him. "But I'm way more messed up now than I was back then. I dunno if it's a good idea for you or even Sammy to welcome me back into the fold yet. I went so far off the reservation this time--"

"--But you came back," Castiel argued evenly. "You came back to this family you built and we're here. Together."

"You're too hopeful."

"And you're not, so it's an advantageous combination." Castiel smiled a bit.

A bit against his will, Dean smiled too. It probably wasn't the best idea for him to set off on a new romance in his condition - hell, he didn't even think he was fit for a one night stand - but the prospect of not keeping Castiel close frightened him more. Nothing left Dean Winchester more bewildered than fear seeping into his mind but he'd been swimming in it since the Mark of Cain left him, replaced by a burst dam of jumbled emotions.

His eyes dropped to the floor. "Am I ever gonna have normal feelings?"

"Do you mean identifying and understanding emotions again?"

"Yeah."

"Mm." The thoughtful sound rolled around Castiel's mouth. "You weren't human for a long time. Inhuman beings struggle with being immersed in emotion if they suddenly find themselves human because there are so many layers to navigate. The trick I found is to identify the primary emotion at any given moment. Everything else will become clearer after that. It'll all come back to you but you must be patient with yourself."

Dean scoffed.

"I'm serious," Castiel argued. "If you continue down this road of hating yourself for things that can't be taken back, you're only going to make it harder on your recovery."

"I destroyed the earth," he whispered.

"What are you feeling?"

"Huh?"

"What are you feeling?"

Dean blinked at the calm patience in the expression looking back at him. He hesitated. "Um...."

"Don't think. Feel. Put a word to it."

"Sorrow." It came out before Dean recognized the syllables forming in his mouth, and then his eyes lifted to Castiel's for confirmation.

"There," replied the angel. "You're one step closer to reclaiming your humanity, Dean. Keep doing it every time you feel something new. Put a word to it."

Sighing, Dean leaned back against his car - his touchstone - and looked toward the high ceiling of the bunker garage. As he let his eyes fall closed for a moment of peace, shuffling by his side brought Castiel closer. Their thighs pressed against each other and a hand slid into his, opening his fingers away from his palm. Neither of them spoke for quite a while and Dean decided the emotion of gratitude rose to the surface. He was grateful Castiel didn't pepper him with questions or make empty promises that everything would be all right. Together they sat in companionable silence, hands linked and fingers entwined in a tight knot.

"Love," murmured Dean.

"Hm?"

A sudden silence descending over the bunker stopped Dean from answering Castiel's lazy inquiry. They both went still and tense. By the vintage motorcycles, rustling and a kicked over cot suggested the sudden unnerving silence ripped Sam out of his slumber.

"Dean?" he barked.

"Yeah," Dean called back, already pulling his gun and climbing to his feet.

Without needing direction, Castiel's angel blade dropped through his coat sleeve and he spread out from the brothers. The three of them fanned out across the cavernous garage headed for the entrance. Dean shoved the door open and peered through the corridor leading to the cement stairwell that took them to the bunker's storage level and main level. He motioned for Castiel and Sam to follow him, each stern with the possibilities of the unknown. The noise and violence roaring outside seemed to just dissipate like a tornado losing strength and melting into the sky.

The three of them ascended to the level above - storage and Men of Letters files stacked taller than all of them. Nothing seemed amiss, except the lack of electricity. So far the garage generator hung on but if they were plunged into darkness above, it meant the other generators took heavy damage. That meant most if not all of Lebanon, Kansas, was without power at that moment. A thousand other possibilities paraded by in his thoughts but securing the bunker took priority.

Bringing up the rear, Sam clicked on a flashlight. A powerful beam of blue-white light sliced through the dark storage rooms as they picked their way to the next cement stairwell. A second beam of light passed through around Dean's other side. He glanced over his shoulder and realized Castiel shined his grace light through the palm of his left hand. The angel was well and truly restored, aside from his battered wings, which Dean found himself grateful that he couldn't see. He said nothing and pressed ahead up the blackened stairwell, gun drawn and hands ready to steady the weapon, to pull the trigger on anything they found.

Dean opened the door to the main level. He peered around the corner toward the war room and on through to the library. A bookshelf had fallen over and jammed against the doorway. Books, papers, files, and weapons on display were scattered on the tables, the table with the map of the world, and across the vast floors.

"Shit," he muttered.

Spinning around, he pointed the gun up toward the outdoor entrance atop the circular staircase while Sam and Castiel ventured into the destruction.

"Well, that explains it. Storm blew open all those doors up there," he said.

Sam glanced up that way too, though he continued to the library. "Take it slow. We don't really know if it's over."

"It very likely has some intelligence," added Castiel. "It may attempt to lull survivors into a false sense of security to lure them out for another bout."

"Bout of what?" Dean asked, headed for the outside doors.

"Maybe this thing eats souls," suggested Sam. "Think about it. Every big thing like this we find has to fuel itself somehow. Cas always said a human soul is like a nuclear reactor."

"Yeah, well," mumbled Dean, "buffet time's over if I have to die cramming it back into whatever stank hole it escaped."

Protests arose below as Sam and Castiel attempted righting a few pieces of overturned furniture but Dean ignored them. He'd been the one to take on the Mark of Cain without knowing enough about it. He'd been the one who selfishly put his needs over the greater good, which turned both he and Sam into killers rather than heroes. He'd been the one who destroyed Death and allowed The Darkness to escape. Sam and Castiel could protest all they wanted but if putting things right required Dean's life in exchange, he'd gladly hand himself over on a silver platter. Being a hero again - saving the world - was what mattered. His life counted for rather little in the end.

"Hatred," he said to himself as he stepped outside. Another correctly identified emotion. Gold star for him.

With a deep breath to steady himself against whatever he might find outside the strong concrete bunker walls, Dean took a few steps into the grassy field facing the road. Uprooted trees blocked both ways for possible traffic. Entire swaths of prairie grass were ripped from the earth and much of it still fluttered down from the sky like snow. The sky above took on a crystal blue quality, so unnerving in its bright cheerfulness after The Darkness left them. Older trees still stood strong, though naked of their leaves, suggesting The Darkness was indeed like a hurricane.

Birds chirped. How the hell had they survived? They sang merrily, perched on those naked tree branches as if nothing happened.

Dean hiked over debris to the road, always keeping the bunker in sight in case he had to make a run for it. He shoved his gun into his waistband and climbed on top of a fallen tree trunk for a higher vantage. A family had been operating a small farm in the meadow across the road from the bunker for generations. Records back in the storage rooms even mentioned the farm. It was a fixed point on the Men of Letters horizon that would tell Dean a great deal about the state of Kansas, at the very least. He stood tall and shaded his eyes with his hand. Not being in sunlight for so long made his eyes hurt but he squinted, looking across the road for any signs of life. Shapes materialized in the bright haze. There was the two-hundred-year-old farmhouse. No, it wasn't right. Oh Christ, the entire top floor was ripped off and left exposed lumber jutting toward the sky in jagged peaks.

Far to the right, however, cattle chewed what remained of the prairie. They seemed completely unaware of what happened just like the birds singing away in the trees. It made no sense. Defenseless wildlife should have been the first victims of The Darkness, yet there were the cows chewing the remaining grass and birds singing like it was any other day.

Movement drew Dean's attention back to the skeleton of the old farmhouse. He squinted at the figure wandering across the yard, dumbfounded and dazed. Dean couldn't make out details but he knew it was the woman who lived there but he saw no sign of her husband or her four children. At least he thought she had four children. Given their professions, Sam and Dean never bothered to get to know their neighbors in the next pasture. She was bleeding. Garnet red liquid poured from her temple, or maybe her cheek, but she wandered in such a daze that she didn't seem to know she was injured.

"Pity," Dean said aloud, identifying another emotion. "Regret. Fear."

Climbing down from the tree trunk, Dean made his way across the road with the intention of making that woman his first good deed - the first baby step on the road to reclaiming his humanity. The woman didn't notice him crossing into her land. His fingers twitched anyway, ready to snatch the gun from his back waistband in case The Darkness did some evil on her. As far as he knew, they were living in a post-apocalyptic, lawless society now. With singing birds. And hungry cows.

"Hey ... uh ... you're hurt."

The woman looked Dean's way but her eyes cut through him. She was in shock, or worse, he decided as he reached a slow hand for her and led her to the nearest fallen tree. He got her to sit with the thump of dead weight. Kneeling in the dirt, Dean examined the gash over her left eyebrow. It needed at least five stitches.

"Do you know where you are?" he asked.

She gave a shallow nod.

"What day is it?"

"Thursday," she whispered. "Who are you?"

"My name's Dean. I live across the road in the other pasture with my brother and my...." A gaping hole appeared when it came to trying to describe Castiel's presence in his life. He cleared his throat. "What's your name?"

"Leona."

"Okay, Leona. Come with me. We have water and supplies and we can get you cleaned up. Where's your...."

Tears began bubbling over Leona's silvery blue eyes. Her head shook loosely at first but soon took on a desperate, harsh action as the truth finally punched a hole through her shock. "It took my husband. He's gone. Pulled through the door and then the house tore apart." Pleading eyes looked up at him. "What was it? Do you know? A tornado? I've never been through a tornado like this." Her face fell into her hands and she wept, completely unconcerned with the blood dripping down her forearms and soaking into her shirt.

"I dunno what it was. Really bad storm, I guess." He'd lied, of course. Guilt awakening in him suggested an ounce of humanity came to life again and he was silently grateful for it. Personal feelings thrust to one side in favor of heightened tension once it dawned on him that a mother of four was alone. "Leona, where are your kids?"

"I put the baby in the car seat on the porch. I was going to look for help when you showed up," she replied between choking sobs. "My older kids are visiting their grandmother in Missouri. Oh God, what am I going to tell them about their father?"

"Stay here. Don't move," ordered Dean.

Fleeing, Dean leaped over the fallen tree trunk and crossed the torn swath of earth to the destroyed house. A soft red curtain blew softly in the shattered living room window tucked under a splintered porch ceiling. He shook one of the columns - the third one lay across the yard - and made sure the whole thing wasn't going to collapse on him. A squalling baby waved angry fists in the air, having freed herself from a pink swaddling blanket. Without actually climbing onto the porch, Dean stretched an arm across the floorboards and grabbed the car seat. Movement temporarily stunned the baby into silence but the squalling soon started up again as Dean carried her away from the only home she'd ever had.

On her feet and holding her sleeve to her head wound, Leona managed to draw herself back into a state of shock that allowed minimal function. She started to reach for her baby but Dean kept a careful tone when he suggested maybe she shouldn't carry an infant until they saw to her head injury. In truth, he didn't want her to lose her mind with grief and fling the baby into a ditch or something. He'd seen a lot of weird shit in his life.

The nameless baby quieted the further they moved from the destroyed house as if she sensed safety drawing nearer. It took some time getting back to the bunker. Leona stumbled over the ruptured earth more than once and she occasionally paused in pain. She said her head hurt, which worried Dean. They couldn't get the Impala out of the garage with all of the debris scattered on their land let alone the fallen trees and splintered, broken buildings they were likely to find on the roads. At best, Dean hoped to get Leona stitched up and, if she lived, take her with the baby to Missouri to be with her family. What a journey like that might look like, however, he couldn't fathom.

"Cas! Sammy!" His voice echoed into the bunker's entranceway.

Furniture dragged across the floor deeper in the bunker. It sounded like Castiel and Sam were already hard at work trying to put their lives back together again. Although his charge stumbled in pain, she still stole a look around the war room with a confused wrinkle across her forehead.

"You live in the old power plant?" Leona asked in a strained voice.

"Yep," replied Dean quickly. "If people can live in firehouses, why not?"

"I guess," she replied.

Before she could ask any more questions, Sam and Castiel came trudging out of the library. Sam had his sleeves tugged to the elbows but still sweat with the effort in restoring order. Castiel had stripped off his tan coat and loosened his tie to assist, also rolling his sleeves to the elbows. It took Dean off-guard for a second. His emotions were truly out of control if simple sleeves rolled to the elbows distracted him from the bleeding woman swaying on his left and a baby in a car seat hooked over his right arm. He chastised himself.

"Whoa. You okay, Leona?" asked Sam, reaching out for her hands.

"Oh, Sam. I didn't know you lived here. I thought you were down the road more." She sagged and sat on a nearby table, apparently at ease with a familiar face. Tears slid from her eyes with renewed vigor. "I'm glad you weren't hurt at least. My husband's gone."

As Sam swooped into action, prying apart her wound with gentle fingers to see how deep it went, Castiel gave Dean a knowing look and took the car seat from him. Leona tearfully recounted just how her husband was sucked through the basement door and through the kitchen door when the tornado hit. She was still convinced it was a tornado. With a nod here and a sound of understanding there, Sam let her talk without asking questions. He knew what happened. They all knew.

Off to one side, Castiel's gravelly voice attempted making baby talk as he unstrapped the little girl from her car seat. Dean felt his eyebrows lower into a deep V-shape of confusion. He'd never seen the angel take care of a baby except that one time his boss at the Gas N Sip conned him into babysitting. He really didn't know what he was doing that time but he certainly appeared at ease picking up Leona's baby there in the bunker. The little girl looked about six-months-old. Big enough to sit up and hold her head up too, Dean guessed. He watched Castiel carry the child on his hip, conversing with her in soft tones. A glance at Dean communicated something but he couldn't discern it until the angel pressed two fingers to the baby's forehead.

"I've looked over the infant," Castiel announced. "She's going to be fine."

Oh. The baby had some sort of internal injury, Dean guessed, and Castiel healed her when no one was looking.

"You need a hospital," said Sam, who had disappeared long enough to bring some gauze to press on Leona's bloody wound.

"Road's blocked, Sammy. Trees are down everywhere. I'm not even sure we can get Baby out of the garage right now let alone on the road," Dean explained with more than just a little worry in his voice. Worry. Another identified emotion.

The news worried Sam too but he covered the emotion with a huffed sigh and a nod. "All right. We can do this." He peeled back the gauze enough to look dissatisfied with Leona's wound and instead added a second wad of white cotton to it. "Our ancestors survived for centuries without cars or hospitals. We can handle this. You're gonna be fine, Leona."

"What about ... uh ... my medicine?" Castiel chose his words carefully as he swayed around the room with the baby.

"Are you a doctor?" Leona asked in a small voice.

"I am." Though it came with a sturdy nod, it sounded like Castiel's usual attempts at telling a lie.

Leona bought it though. She was obviously still in deep shock because Castiel was one of the worst liars known to mankind. Even if they'd allowed an outsider into the bunker, it was an emergency, but that didn't mean Castiel needed to reveal himself as an angel. That might send her over the edge. She'd probably expect him to bring back her dead husband, which wasn't the way things worked.

"Cas," began Dean, hoping to get his attention.

Even Sam stood upright from bending over the wound and eyed Castiel warily. Usually he was down for any of the angel's strange ideas.

"Here, Dean. Take care of Elizabeth for a little while," Castiel said as he passed the gurgling baby into Dean's grasp.

"How did you know her name?" asked Leona, bewildered.

Castiel winked at her. "She told me."

"She ... told you?"

The Winchester brothers exchanged looks of uncertainty. Although Castiel clearly knew what he was doing, tension wound tight for days under The Darkness and they felt nothing but distrust of anything and anyone. Baby Elizabeth squirmed in Dean's arms. He bounced her a little bit to keep her from crying. That was the last thing his nerves needed.

"This is what's going to happen, Leona," explained Castiel in a soothing tone. "I'm going to put you to sleep for a little while. That way you won't feel any pain while Sam assists me in cleaning and stitching your wound. Dean will play with Elizabeth. She won't see anything frightening. When you wake, you'll be in one of the beds upstairs where you can rest while we decide on a plan to get more food and supplies. All right?"

"I guess I don't really have a choice," she said, voice going numb.

"Don't worry," Sam put in with his hand on her shoulder. "We're gonna take great care of you and Elizabeth."

"I need to get to my other children."

Sam nodded. "Where are they?"

"Missouri," Dean supplied, patting the baby's bottom.

"We'll find a way as soon as possible," promised Sam.

"Okay," she murmured. "Go ahead, then."

With a nod, Castiel produced a glass of milk, which Dean had no idea where it came from, and gave it to Leona. He told her there was a sedative in it but there obviously wasn't anything strange about it. Using a decoy to put her to sleep impressed Dean since Castiel was never prone to deception or even slight of hand acts unless it was life or death. It occurred to Dean all at once that Leona's head injury was more serious than it looked if Castiel behaved that way.

"Just relax. You're safe with us," soothed Castiel.

Under the pretense of examining her wound, Castiel discreetly touched her forehead with two fingers once she drank half of the glass of milk. A quick white-blue glow fed through his fingertips and Leona's head lolled to one side. Sleep overcame her in an instant.

Sam lunged forward and grabbed her around the shoulders before she fell on the floor. He slipped an arm under her knees as Castiel and Dean backed away, giving him room to swing her limp, unconscious body up into his arms. The business of saving lives always flattened Sam's expression into something hard to outsiders but was, in fact, deep concentration. He reacted to saving a life like it was second nature, which Dean envied in some way. How did he get so far away from protecting humanity while Sam lived and breathed it?

"So you've been hanging out with the neighbor lady?" Dean quipped as he followed his brother into the residence quarters. Baby Elizabeth clung to his flannel shirt along the way and gnawed on a fistful of fabric.

Sam glanced back, rolling his eyes over his shoulder. "Is everything a porn movie to you?"

"How is that pornographic?" asked Castiel, walking along behind them.

Laughing under his breath had Dean thinking just how much he missed that sensation - a real chuckle, a real smile.

Sam hoisted the woman's body for a better grip. "That husband of hers wasn't worth much," he explained. "I'd come back to the bunker pretty often and see her chopping firewood and feeding the cows by herself, even when she was pregnant, so I offered to do it a few times. She tried to pay me but I never took her money. It was something her husband should've been doing."

"Sounds like The Darkness sucking him away wasn't any great loss then," Dean replied.

"Huh...." mumbled Sam. He paused at room number fourteen in the residence, thinking. Castiel maneuvered ahead and flung open the door for them as Sam voiced his thoughts. "Maybe there's something to it. Leona should be dead too but she only took a head injury, yet her lazy slob of a husband got sucked away. A weightless little baby didn't get killed either."

"The baby took blunt force trauma to the abdomen," said Castiel in his monotone. "I took care of the internal bleeding already."

"But Leona and Elizabeth made it out of the worst global storm in history. If they made it, other people did too. What if there's a pattern to who dies and who survives?" As he spoke, Sam placed Leona in the center of an empty bed.

"Birds were singing," said Dean.

Both of them looked at him then.

"I went outside and the first thing I noticed was the bright sky. Then I heard birds singing. Shouldn't they have been killed first?" Dean took a seat on the lower corner of the bed and rocked a bit, noticing Elizabeth's drowsy, drooping eyes. "When I climbed up on a tree trunk for a look around, I saw cows in Leona's pasture chomping grass like nothing happened. So how the hell are cattle and wildlife coming out of The Darkness unscathed but her dickwad husband got killed?"

"You're saying The Darkness is picking and choosing who dies," Castiel said, hovering over his patient.

Sam nodded. "It could be intelligent."

"I'm putting money on it," agreed Dean.

"If Leona's husband was universally known to be lazy and treated his wife like a servant, then his moral compass was corrupt." Castiel spoke more to himself, working out the theory out loud, and touched Leona's head and belly in careful examination. "We can suppose if The Darkness has a specific appetite for human souls, it would be the ones with darkness already firmly rooted in them."

"So are we saying it's eating all the bad people?" asked Dean.

"Not necessarily. We all have darkness in us but we're not bad people."

"Speak for yourself, Sammy."

The younger brother scoffed. "I'm just saying, Dean, there are all kinds of darknesses in people. For her husband, it made him a lazy prick. But there are people beaten down by physical and mental illness too, and they don't deserve to die, but The Darkness might not discriminate. Dark is dark. Light is light."

"Then millions could be eaten," Dean guessed.

"Or even billions," commented Castiel over his examination.

Sam gave a solemn nod. "We just won't know who's left until we get out there and have a look around. I'm thinking survival depends on a soul's ability to fight their own personal darknesses. For all we know, all the world's governments are gone now. If that's the case, the world's infrastructure is a mess and we can't depend on anyone but ourselves. It's not a good sign that we don't have electricity either. We don't know how widespread the power loss is right now. I saw a documentary about the blackout in New York City during the 70s and it turned people into violent thieves. Take away basic infrastructure and humans revert to chaos."

"Well, aren't you a ray of sunshine," Dean muttered with a furrowed brow.

"He's right," Castiel put in. "We won't know what we'll find until we get out there. I think it's prudent to secure the bunker first."

Nodding, Sam's face took on that business expression again. "I'm gonna go take inventory of our guns and ammunition. After that, I'll start moving debris and securing every entrance. I don't think people know we're here besides Leona but I'm not willing to take any chances."

"Soon as this kid drops of to sleep, I'll come help you," Dean offered.

Having a plan seemed to revive Sam. He nodded and left the room, ready to protect the bunker from zombies or thieves or anything else singlehandedly. It revived Dean a bit too, making him feel on heightened alert like the old days, especially during the final days of the apocalypse. It wasn't that he craved that kind of action but he'd already been through it and he knew they were capable of surviving.

"Cas...."

Blue eyes flashed his way. "Yes?"

"You think it's as bad as Sammy says?"

The angel thought over the question and took his time doing so. Satisfied with the thorough going over he gave Leona while she slept, he pressed two fingers to her forehead and her belly. In a quick flash of white-blue grace light, it was done. The gash across her head mended before Dean's eyes, although the blood remained.

"Cas," said Dean, leaning forward a bit.

He looked at Dean then, hands leaning on the bed. "I think it could be worse than Sam guesses. As of this morning, the human race is very likely an endangered species. Depending on how it's handled, you'll either go extinct by your own hands or you'll rebuild your species into a new society that flourishes stronger than before." He shrugged a bit. "I'll do everything I can to help. You should know my first priority is defeating The Darkness."

"Mine too," Dean replied.

Coming closer, Castiel knelt at Dean's feet and took his hand close to the baby. "We're going to do it together. I need you."

"I need you too." Color prickled Dean's cheeks and he wanted to laugh at himself for a moment. He hadn't reacted that way to a romantic possibility since ... well ... he'd never reacted that way. It had to be the jumbled state of his emotions. "She gonna be okay now?"

"She'll be fine. I'll keep her asleep until we have a plan."

Even talking over mundane plans, Dean noticed he hadn't let go of Castiel's hand beneath Elizabeth's chubby little leg. "I just hope her kids and her mom are still alive when we manage to get to Missouri."

"If our theory is correct, the kids will most certainly be alive."

"And their grandmother?"

"Well," sighed Castiel, "that all depends on her strength in beating back her own darkness so it doesn't attract The Darkness' appetite."

"That's true for all of us," murmured Dean.


	3. Chapter 3

It took Sam little more than a week to discover the changes in the bond between Dean and Castiel. While Dean wasn't exactly trying to hide anything from his brother, he didn't think officially committing to Castiel required a parade either. There was a lot of frightening stuff going on out there that they couldn't always detect. Life without electricity certainly made their world a lot smaller and a few careful expeditions toward the town of Lebanon revealed almost no survivors and absolutely no remaining infrastructure.

On top of the damage done by The Darkness, they were dealing with an injured woman and her baby taking shelter in the bunker with them. Castiel healed baby Elizabeth's internal bleeding and Leona's head injury without revealing himself as an angel but he couldn't do much about her lingering headaches or the growing food shortage. Dean really took refrigeration for granted. Now without it on a wide scale, the world's grocery stores only had a few days left before they most certainly became giant piles of rotten garbage.

"If there are any survivors on the self-sustaining farms around here, they'll be the ones who make it," Sam had decided in a grim tone on the third day after The Darkness dissipated. "We've got a lot of canned stuff but we're gonna be susceptible to scurvy and vitamin deficiencies if we don't get fresh vegetables into our bodies as soon as we can."

"Even if I could fly, there won't be much left once the insects have their way with abandoned crops," added Castiel.

Dean scrubbed a hand down his face in frustration. "So this is like some Little House On the Prairie shit now."

"I guess the best we can do is keep an eye out for survivors while we drive Leona and the baby to Missouri. It'll be a good time to explore. Whatever we find on the road to Missouri will give us a good indication of what the rest of the planet probably looks like at the moment." Looking toward the newly organized pantry, Sam mentally counted up their supplies for the hundredth time. "I think I'm gonna have to talk to Leona about buying her cattle or at least some of it. We need milk and meat."

"Hold on. Don't jump the gun and get all farmer Sam on us just yet," Dean argued. "We don't know what's out there. It could just be a few isolated places that got wrecked. The rest of the world could be out there chuggin' along right now."

Dark hazel eyes turned downward at a sad angle as Sam studied Dean's face. He shook his head. "Then why haven't any TV stations or radio stations come back yet? It's been a week. If there was any government left, the first thing they'd do is try to get mass communication back online. It's dead silence out there. I haven't even found any activity on short wave radio." He turned toward the open door at the top of the bunker stairs left ajar to let in the spring air. "I don't think there are any working governments left. No infrastructure. No police. No organized medical care. We need to start thinking of ourselves like we got dumped on the trail two hundred years ago. We gotta go into survival mode."

Castiel pressed a hand into Sam's shoulder. "I'll speak to Leona about the cattle. You're right. Meat is necessary."

That was the way every conversation with Sam went for the first weeks after The Darkness destroyed everything. Something in his eyes got darker and his mind never seemed to stop turning over the details of the next day and the day after that. His goals weren't so much in hunting down The Darkness like they were for Dean. He took to walking up and down the road in front of the bunker a little more each day in search of survivors. Though he found none, he still carried an enormous shotgun and wore a fishing vest outfitted with ammunition and basic first aid supplies, all of which went unused. Each day Sam returned to the bunker reporting vacant houses and a vacant town square void of even one dead body. To Dean, his brother started looking like a cross between one of those anti-government militia nuts in the wilderness and a mountain man. Sam was definitely changing and Dean couldn't tell if he was being paranoid or simply honest.

For Dean, he couldn't seem to wrap his mind around what happened. He struggled to comprehend the possibility that the majority of the earth's human population was destroyed in a matter of days by the superstorm of the millennium. That was how he imagined the news stations describing it if there were any left. The superstorm of the millennium complete with sleek graphics and ominous music. He was beginning to miss overhyped news reports.

Knowing he was the reason so many people were eaten by The Darkness was definitely too big to swallow for the moment. He might never be able to let his actions sink in or he'd lose what little sanity he had left. While his brother underwent subtle changes with each passing day, Dean felt himself changing too. He wasn't talking nearly as much. There wasn't much to laugh at anymore either, no reason to make jokes that always lightened the mood. Every morning, he drank his coffee outside and marveled at the sound of a world without the constant hum of cars, trucks, sirens, and even the subtle influxes of human voices in the distance. Soon his coffee supplies would be gone too. The silence opened Dean's world to the birds and the weather. He began predicting spotty spring storms just by the feeling in the air and the color in the sky.

A silent world also gave him no choice but to listen to the resurgence of his human emotions too. Every day he put labels on old feelings stretching their legs and learning to walk again. There was a lot of anger and self-hatred, of course. Love was new, or maybe it has always been there but he couldn't hear it over the noise in the world. Even if he didn't throw a parade or announce his relationship with Castiel, he didn't bother to hide it either. Who was left out there to judge him?

In a few days, Dean slid into the driver's seat of his beloved Impala once again. With Sam by his side and baby Elizabeth between Castiel and Leona in the back, they set off into the unknown headed east toward Missouri. It wasn't the safest way to travel but Dean stowed a few bright red cans of gasoline in the trunk in case they couldn't find any functional gas stations along the way. Sam continued his incessant predictions about how they'd have to stop using cars and go back to wagons while society rebuilt itself. He said The Darkness set at least their part of the world back by at least a hundred years. Maybe more if they couldn't find electricity soon. At first Dean thought his brother was enjoying the Little House On the Prairie experience. Then he realized he got it wrong. Sam was babbling about broken society because he was afraid and feeling powerless to change it. At least they both had that in common - the fear.

"Sam, you're going to take care of my cattle. I have faith in you," commented Leona from the backseat.

"I don't really know what I'm doing but I think I can do it," Sam replied. "I mean, I don't really have a choice. We have to start thinking differently if we're gonna make it. Sure makes you admire farmers a lot more."

"Hopefully this isn't long term. The bigger cities are probably okay. How far could that storm have gone? I bet St. Louis is still working just fine. Surely Chicago." Leona leaned over and popped the pacifier back into Elizabeth's mouth as she spoke. "My husband wouldn't know what to do if he saw all this. Forgive me but I'm not going to miss him now that the shock's worn off. Sam knows."

"Yep, I do. You've got a chance to start over with your kids now."

"If my kids are still alive," she murmured to the open window with sudden emotion brimming her eyes. "God, they have to be alive."

"You mom sounds pretty tough from what you've said about her. If anyone has a shot, I bet it's her and those kids of yours. Don't worry. We're not gonna dump you off in the middle of nowhere and take off without making sure you find your people first," said Dean, talking to her through the rear view mirror.

The strange band of survivors of The Darkness rode on toward the Missouri border. A single slice of black machinery cut through the rolling Kansas plains looking so far removed from the world left behind by The Darkness. Wilderness encroached on the road far quicker than Dean anticipated as fallen trees whizzed past the windows. It was like nature waited for its opportunity to reclaim the scars of roads and buildings inflicted by human expansion. It was unsettling to see how quick uprooted trees and overgrown grass could overtake decades upon decades of progress. Humanity was the real fragile thing. The earth was the true strength.

Castiel hardly ever stole a glance out of his window, Dean noticed. He spent a few hours thumbing through magazines Leona managed to save from the wreckage of her home, along with boxes stuffed in the Impala's trunk. Just what was so interesting about Vogue and Cosmo, Dean couldn't fathom, yet there was something strange in Castiel's eyes as he studied the women. It made Dean shift uneasily in the driver's seat. He wondered if Castiel already regretted taking up with him when there were beautiful women out there. Well, maybe.

"Leona, how are female ensembles put together? Like this one?" Castiel leaned over and pointed out a page in Vogue to their traveling companion.

Eavesdropping wasn't something Dean could avoid in such close quarters but he fixed a stony expression on his face just to be sure. He couldn't figure out why Castiel even cared about chick clothes when things were such a mess. Maybe it was starting to be like the days when Castiel lived in the institution because he couldn't keep his sanity intact. Maybe reading fashion magazines was an obsessive tick Dean needed to watch in case The Darkness sent Castiel spiraling back to madness.

Leona tilted her face toward the page Castiel indicated. "Well, here they're talking about how lilac and green are the fashionable colors for this spring. Anything in the mauve family is in style."

"Who decides what's in style?" Castiel asked.

"I don't know. Fashionable people, I guess."

"And who are they?"

Thinking about it for a moment, Leona laughed. "You know, I've never thought about it. I have no idea."

"Hmm," Castiel considered as he looked over the page again, lines deepening across his forehead. In a low gravelly tone, he offered, "I like this lilac color," as if his approval made the color worth more than the others.

"Too bad men don't wear colors like that," commented Leona.

That truly baffled Castiel and his head inclined at a questioning angle. "Why not? A color is not a living thing, therefore not a gendered creature. A color is a point on a spectrum of light."

"True but men generally wear dark colors and earth tones. If a guy walked outside wearing lilac, people would either think he's gay or a rich brat from the Hamptons." She shrugged. It didn't seem she meant any offense with what she said and Castiel didn't appear to take offense either. Her eyes brightened as if something just occurred to her. "Oh you are gay, aren't you? I mean you and Dean. So whatever, you know? Wear lilac. You're allowed."

"I'm not gay," said Castiel in halting words.

"Oh but I thought...."

His mouth thinned out. "I'm not straight either."

"Interesting."

"I don't think there's a word to describe me," he said thoughtfully. "I just know I like lilac and this dress shape right here on this page seems very appealing."

Leona nodded with a casual shrug. "Maybe you're transgender. My best friend in college was."

"What does that mean?" asked Castiel.

The water bottle pressed to Dean's lips shot out of his mouth and bounced off the windshield. He swerved on the road. Thankfully there was no other traffic to block his way as he coughed and struggled to get in the correct lane again.

Low chuckling emanated from Sam's side of the car.

"Shut up," Dean groused.

From then on, Dean did his best to not hear everything Castiel and Leona talked about there in the backseat. He popped a tape into the radio and turned up the booming drums and hard bass lines. There was no point in trying to find any radio stations working out there when Sam only found static. It seemed like they had the only running car in the entire state as the skyline of Kansas City came into view.

Stillness. Far too much stillness. Dean squinted over the steering wheel for any signs of life. Even the chatter between new best friends in the back fell as silent as the baby between them. No one voiced what they expected to see but it certainly wasn't the entire highway lined with empty cars and trucks flung every which way in the violent weather. Sam leaned forward in his seat as if something caught his eye but only made a clicking noise with his tongue and shook his head. Behind them, Castiel murmured something under his breath that might have been a long forgotten Enochian prayer. They drove into the city proper, careful to weave around empty vehicles every few yards. Dark office buildings and the skeletons of blacked out streetlights pointed to a lack of electricity just as they'd endured over half of Kansas.

"Where are the bodies?" Sam asked no one in particular.

"What?" asked Dean.

"There should be bodies everywhere if The Darkness killed so many people. I don't see anything. Not even a drop of blood."

"It took my husband. Sucked him right out of the house," Leona pointed out in her new hardened way. "With his last breath, he cursed God for killing him in such a freak way. I think the fool thought he should've died with more dignity."

"We never found his body," added Dean. "Maybe it takes the whole person, not just the soul."

"The soul? Good God, you make it sound like that storm knew what it was doing," Leona huffed.

No one answered her. The two Winchester brothers glanced at each other warily, communicating entire ideas and questions with just a brief look. If they were going to drop Leona off with her family, there was no need to expose her to the reality of The Darkness. It would only scar her more. Dean hadn't known her before the blackness swept the world but Sam had and he mentioned just the night before how her innocence no longer existed. She was well on her way to developing the hard crust all hunters had over their hearts after some evil ripped away the only life they ever knew.

"Head for the hospital," Sam suggested. "If there are any survivors, they'll most likely head that way first."

Without a word, Dean steered his Impala toward the University of Kansas Hospital in the heart of the city, knowing it wasn't too far away from St. Luke's. People were more likely to migrate in that direction than the hospital on the north side of the city. He knew there had to be survivors out there if Leona and Elizabeth weren't killed even though they were only feet away from another casualty. They'd seen evidence of people about thirty miles back when they stopped at a gas station. Though there was no clerk to pay, the food shelves looked like they'd been ransacked.

Conversation never rose again once they moved into Kansas City. Dean found himself holding his breath as his eyes busily scanned the streets for signs of survival. Debris made the city look like it had been slammed by a hurricane - an impossibility there in the middle of the country. Dean couldn't fathom the economy of that city ever recovering from such devastating damage. He caught a glimpse of his brother's profile, eyes glazed with the tears he couldn't actually shed.

There was something changing in Sam but Dean couldn't figure it out, nor did he have the energy to go poking around that wound at the moment. Sam had been wandering around in a blind daze for almost a week spouting monotone predictions about how the world would change now that so many people were gone and no working governments remained. Something about it reminded Dean of the way his brother had been when he was going through those psychic visions years ago. Maybe there was something to it. Maybe Sam knew more than he was letting on, as if The Darkness awoke that dormant part of his brain once again. If that was true, he couldn't begin to stomach the images his brother must be enduring on a daily basis now. It was only a theory, after all, but he filed it away to examine later.

"There are humans nearby," Castiel announced without emotion.

Leona's head darted from window to window. "Where do you see them?"

"Up there. The next block. Turn left," Castiel directed Dean.

Just as Castiel felt it, there were scattered clumps of people making their way up the street toward University of Kansas Hospital. Many were still bleeding or cradling broken limbs even more than a week after the storm hit. Who knew how long it had taken them to walk that far and from where they had come? A mother carried her child of about five-years-old toward the hospital, a dead, glassy look in her eyes suggesting a loss so profound that she'd never be the same. None of them would.

Up ahead at the hospital entrance, they found a makeshift triage set up in the parking lot reserved for ambulances pulling up to the emergency room. There were no ambulances anymore because there were no ambulance drivers able to get around the city. Dean took stock of the scene immediately, counting up a grand total of five nurses and four doctors. Perhaps one of them might have been from the surgical floor judging by his clinical blue scrubs. Something told him those were the only doctors and nurses left in the entire hospital complex but he hoped beyond all hope that there were some more over at St. Luke's not far away. Even some up at the hospital on the north side of the city would help. Plans formulated in Sam's mind already about how to pull together the city's remaining medical forces and get some sense of organization back on track. Dean knew his brother just by the expression on his face.

Dean parked the car far enough away to keep people from bumping into it and thinking it was free for the taking. Leading the way, Sam headed for the spread of exhausted nurses examining lacerations and broken bones. Dark circles under their eyes and wrinkles scrubs suggested they hadn't slept or showered much since The Darkness swarmed. Dean absently wondered if there was any running water at all in the city.

"Hey," Sam said to the nearest nurse.

She cut him off and pointed over his head with her pen. "Head injuries in the first line. Lacerations and burns in the second line. Broken bones in the third line. Respiratory distress and internal bleeding in the fourth line over there."

"Oh, we're not injured. I'm Sam Winchester and this is my brother Dean. We came from Lebanon. This is the first bunch of people we've seen since the storm."

That got her attention and she stood up, dark curls flying around her head. "You came all the way from Lebanon and you haven't seen any people until now?"

"We saw evidence of people looting for food about thirty miles east of here but other than that, no," Sam replied.

"Jesus fucking Christ." Stress knitted the nurse's brows together. She glanced around the makeshift triage and yelled over the constant hum of low voices. "Jack! You hear this? These folks came in from the middle of Kansas and they haven't seen any people until now. I don't think this was any tornado like Bill said. You got any phone lines up yet?"

A man in a white lab coat at the other end of the triage shook his head. "Can't get a phone line up without power."

"How many people have you guys treated here since the storm?" Dean asked.

"I think about fifteen thousand have come and gone from the three metropolitan hospitals over the last nine days. It's starting to taper off now. To be honest, I expected a lot more considering so many doctors and nurses are missing right now. We're down to six trauma surgeons upstairs and eleven ER docs in there, not that they can do much without electricity or running water. More like battlefield conditions around here if you ask me." The nurse arched her spine and let out a strained sigh. A haunted shadow fell over her eyes as she looked down the battered and broken street. "What the hell happened? I mean, I expected to see federal aid come in by now. State aid at the very least. There hasn't been a peep from Missouri or Kansas, let alone Washington DC." She sighed. "I just don't get it."

Dean cowered inside. He took a step back and only partially listened to Sam's muffled conversation with the nurse. He had no idea how to explain to those innocent people that help wasn't coming. Quick math told him that if only about twenty or thirty thousand survived in a city somewhere around two million people, then only a fraction of the world's seven billion people survived. He wasn't great at math. Five hundred million were left, maybe?

As soon as they walked far enough away from the makeshift triage, Dean consulted his brother about the math. "How many people are we talking, Sammy? Let's say about thirty thousand survived here in Kansas City. That's like seventy perfect of the city dead."

"Sixty-nine percent, actually," replied Sam in a quiet voice that hit Dean's ears in an ominous way. The United States was close to 320 million last I heard."

"At a possible twenty-one percent survival rate, that's 188 million left in this country. Maybe." The math spilled from Castiel's mouth effortlessly and he linked his hand through Dean's as he spoke, offering support. He squeezed Dean's hand and rubbed his arm as they walked together.

Sam didn't seem to notice the milestone of the first time Dean and Castiel held hands in public. He was too far deep into the implications of The Darkness killing millions in just a few days. "If we call it a hundred million even right now, we're looking at a population index similar to the decades right after the Civil War. That was when the United States was still mostly rural and agricultural. So I was right. People living on self-sustaining farms have the best shot at survival while society rebuilds." He scratched his head as he walked, thinking out loud without caring who heard him. "I don't know how we're gonna establish things again. At least there was the telegraph in the nineteenth century. We eliminated that when better technology came along but now all of our technology is dead. So, really, we're dealing with an eighteenth century world with a possible nineteenth century population. Okay...."

"I don't wanna talk about numbers anymore," Dean snapped.

Anger. There was an old familiar emotion rising to the surface with the speed of a missile. Fuck. He hated himself for wishing that damn missile would hit him and give the world justice for his actions. The only reason he didn't end things for himself was because he knew he'd disappoint Castiel, who worked fucking hard to patch him back together again. And Sammy. Who would look after Sammy? Something wasn't right in him. Nobody knew him well enough to recognize it except Dean.

"We gotta get back on the road," he mumbled to fill the silence.

As they made their way back to the Impala, a single question rose in a small voice from Leona's lips. "What will I do if my older children are gone too?"


	4. Chapter 4

It didn't get any less eerie as Dean progressed into Missouri seeing evidence of survivors in looted stores but not actually coming across any living people. They never found a grocery store around Kansas City with food still on the shelves. Survivors took every spec of nonperishable food and left the meat and produce to rot.

A hundred miles southeast of Kansas City, Dean spotted a grocery store that looked untouched by looters. In fact, the entire town looked empty. He wondered how many other small country towns simply ceased to exist in a mere 72 hours. The guilt was eating a hole through his gut as he steered the car toward the untouched store. Guilt wasn't even a big enough word. The English language hadn't even come close to defining how badly he'd screwed over the planet. Every language on the planet would have to spend decades coming up with new words to describe the man named Dean Winchester who fucked over the entire planet.

Sam took the lead into the empty grocery store, each of them having learned quickly to tie bandanas around their faces to try and repel some of the rotten stench. They took more than they needed for the moment. Dean went through the motions of collecting cans and bags of food supplies with the rest of them but he felt himself sinking deeper into apathy and numbness by the hour. He really didn't care if he ate or not. Self-pity wasn't attractive - in fact he was starting to annoy himself - but seeing more of the destruction he'd caused with every mile they drove horrified him in ways he couldn't articulate. Winchesters had screwed up before but Dean was responsible for almost putting the human species into extinction. The blood of billions was on his hands. There was no way to be forgiven for that. His only reason for surviving - besides his family - was the chance that he could put The Darkness back into whatever dank pit of hell from which it escaped.

A hand slipped into Dean's without a word. He peered at Castiel walking along beside him, their bodies tethered together by their knotted fingers. He'd been doing that lately, appearing out of nowhere when Dean let silence sink in for more than a few hours. He couldn't find anything worth talking about anymore. Nobody needed to hear what he thought after what he'd done even if his intentions were always good.

"Listen to me," Castiel said in a discreet tone somewhere in the pasta and rice aisle. "I know what you're feeling, Dean. You say a lot more with your new habit of silence than screaming out your thoughts. What's happened is catastrophic. I won't deny it."

"Great. Thanks for the recap, Cas."

"It's catastrophic but you are not the sole person to blame. There were millions of moving parts in a mechanism far greater than just you. Each piece in the mechanism had a part to play."

Dean eyed him. "You sound like this was meant to happen."

The bright blue in Castiel's eyes had dimmed something slightly more silver as if the stress of watching so much of humanity disappear had damaged him too. "There was a prophecy at the commencement of humanity. Your ancestors were still living in caves and grunting at each other when it was written. Not a single angel truly believed it and we believed speaking of it would make it true, so we each vowed never to utter a word about it."

A white hot flush of anger, of sorrow, of desperation rippled through Dean's limbs as the implications of what Castiel said sank in through the hardness of his depression. Before he could stop himself, Dean hurled his weight into Castiel's body and three his back against the aisle shelves. Castiel allowed it. He didn't even stiffen. It was like throwing a rag doll.

"You mean to tell me, Cas, that you knew about this?" His voice came out darker than even he'd expected.

"I only knew in the broadest terms, not who, when, or even how. God kept it under such tight control that we knew nothing beyond this: it was called The Grace of Mankind. It was written that man would destroy itself in a single day, only to rebuild itself in a new period of grace and plenty. We knew nothing more. There was nothing to direct me in discovering how it would happen. I thought it was man's role in the apocalypse but the grace and plenty never came after we stopped it. I thought we interrupted the prophecy. I thought it was never to come."

Sucking in a deep breath, Dean slammed the heel of his hand into the shelf by Castiel's head in a quick explosion of rage. The angel - his angel - never flinched. It was as if Castiel still trusted Dean with the blind love and faith of even a child. It was written. It was known thousands of years ago. They still hadn't managed to avoid it. And where was the grace and plenty? There was only death, rot, and destruction.

Dean's chest heaved under the brute force of a sob leaving his body. Hot tears blurred his vision. The horrible weight he'd been carrying since the Mark of Cain seared into his flesh and left again pulled hard on his knees. He dropped to the floor one leg at a time, clutching fistfuls of Castiel's clothes as he fell. The dry heaving way his body sobbed out the guilt right down to the marrow in his bones left him weak and broken. He tried to pull away when Castiel lowered in front of him. He wasn't a man anymore and he didn't deserve the comfort Castiel or even Sam wanted to give him. But Castiel wasn't having it. He grabbed Dean by the front of his shirt and shook him, forcing him to stop resisting his love.

The spasms and sobs had Dean sounding in his own ears like a wounded animal going through an exorcism. Distant footfalls pounded across the grocery store tiles, bringing Sam, Leona, and baby Elizabeth to see what had happened. Dean buried his face in Castiel's shoulder, unwilling to look at the questions in their eyes so long as he couldn't control his outbursts of sorrow and dejection.

"Give us time," Castiel barked over Dean's shoulder.

Without a word, the others fell away after only a moment of hesitation. Dean heard it in the dissipating footsteps. He didn't dare turn around and let his little brother see how broken he'd become. Even after everything, what little Sammy thought of big brother Dean still mattered.

"Dean, you can't give in to despair," Castiel whispered with his own sense of desperation. "We don't know where The Darkness is right now or if it's still feeding. Please, you can't give up. Dean? Look at me."

Reluctantly, he tried.

Warm, familiar hands framed Dean's face as Castiel stared into him. "I'll drag you back to life every step of the way if I must but you're not giving up. We need you. I need you."

"I need you," whispered Dean so hoarsely that he barely understood his own words.

"Then you have to keep going. Stop thinking about what you don't deserve and start thinking about what we all deserve." One of Castiel's hands dropped from Dean's face and squeezed his fingers. "Grab my hand every time you feel like you're slipping away. I'm strong. I can take it."

No one spoke of what had happened in the grocery store. Not even as Dean trailed behind the others carrying their bags and bags of food and supplies to the car. He couldn't speak to them then and he didn't know if he could ever speak of it. The entire day - the entire week, really - left Dean exhausted and broken, yet he didn't even think he had the right to think about his own suffering. The only thing that mattered was shoving The Darkness back into whatever shit hole it came from to try and give the survivors a better chance at a future of grace and plenty, as Castiel had described it. If the worst prophecy came true, then the best one could come true as well.

Something else shifted when they piled into the Impala. His brother climbed into the backseat with Leona and her baby, while Castiel slid into the passenger seat beside Dean. They hadn't even talked about it. There was no question. It was as if something unspoken changed in the dynamic of their family. If Dean wasn't so run through by exhaustion, he might have made some sarcastic remark to mask his love for the angel sitting beside him. As it stood there, he was shocked he was still able to drive. Was that how the deepest parts of depression felt? When a body moved beyond anger and hatred into feeling like a lump of numb clay unable to care about anything? That wasn't entirely true. If he didn't still manage to feel love for Castiel and protective instincts toward Sam, he knew he would have driven the Impala into a tree as soon as the reality of humanity's destruction dawned on him.

As he drove toward Jefferson City, Dean reached over and took Castiel's hand. The warmth he clutched there felt like his only tie left to life and he held onto it with everything he had. They drove in silence for miles. Even the baby sat quietly in her car seat. Maybe they sensed Dean's strenuous hold on life or maybe they considered the implications of their own lives in that new and broken world. Prophecy or not, Dean still took the Mark of Cain, let it go, and unleashed The Darkness. It was still his fault.

Dean hardly knew anything they passed on the way to the Missouri state capitol. Eventually conversation picked up in short bursts between Sam and the others but he barely heard any of it. The truth was Dean needed to go to bed for about a month. Then maybe he would start feeling human again. It occurred to him as he dreamed of going to sleep that it WAS a human desire he hadn't been feeling much since the Mark of Cain latched onto him. Sleep was normal. Sleep was human. He wanted it really bad, which brought a faint smile to his lips. The slightest twinge of hope felt wonderful and life affirming even if it was the desire to go into a coma because of depression. Something his mother said to one of her friends when he was very small came to mind. What was it? You have to start from the bottom and climb through all the muck to get to the top. He guessed that was the gist of what she said but it made sense.

"Dean?" asked Leona from the backseat.

"Yeah?" His voice was still hoarse and brittle.

"You're gonna wanna take the next exit. Take a left from there. I mean if the roads are intact." She let out a bit of a strained sigh. "My mom has a house on the Missouri River. If you can get us pointed that way, I can find it."

"Roads are shitty in Missouri even without all this storm damage on top of it," Sam commented.

"Oh God," she moaned quietly in despair. "Please let my kids be okay. Please, please, please."

Turning toward the backseat, Castiel reached over and touched Leona's arm. "I'm sure everything is all right. Children are remarkably resilient and they can survive things most people would think are impossible."

"Except maybe the end of the world. I don't understand how we survived when it's obvious so many millions are ... God ... millions are dead. Sam's right though. Where are the bodies? The whole planet should smell like the grocery stores do just from the decay alone. I haven't seen a single dead body yet. And it's so weird how all the cattle and wildlife are just roaming around out there like nothing happened." Leona drew a ragged breath as a thousand things seemed to occur to her all at once.

The more she rattled off inconsistencies about the storm, Dean realized her shock was fading away and she, like so many other people out there, would start questioning everything around them. He hadn't thought that far ahead yet. People would inevitably compare the whole thing to Revelations in the Bible, which wasn't even what happened. They'd already survived Revelations years ago without even knowing it. Dean, Sam, and Castiel saved the world and put their lives on the line to piece the broken world back together again. Why was he thinking about that time in his life so much? It was done and over with. There was nothing left to learn from that period except when not to break seals and make deals with demons and angels.

Movement caught Dean's eye in the rear view mirror. He glanced into the backseat and saw Sam's deep hazel eyes staring back at him. Dean cocked his head just slightly, asking a silent question that Castiel answered by squeezing his hand.

"Now is a time for truth," he said gently.

"Cas is right. If there's going to be any chance of rebuilding the world, there shouldn't be any secrets," Sam said.

They were pushing him to tell Leona the truth about The Darkness and their theory that it was feeding on broken souls consumed by blackness. His mouth went to sandpaper as he tried to find the words even to reject the idea of telling her the truth. But if they told her, then she'd stand a better chance of surviving and ensuring her mother and children could survive too.

"I can't do it," Dean finally said in that brittle voice.

Like any good family would, Sam and Castiel mended the broken link in Dean. They took on his burdens by explaining the whole of the situation to Leona, who veered between abject shock and disbelief, to finally, acceptance and determination. Dean listened to them soften his role in the entire mess. While he loved them all the more for it, he knew he didn't deserve the protection of such a loyal family. He wondered if he'd ever find the strength to fight again, to make his voice rise above the brittle shadow that it had become since he'd sunk into a silent world. Speaking seemed like a luxury. Driving seemed like a luxury too. His thoughts circled back around to the nearest bed he could find, crawl into, and die in if Castiel and Sam would just let him go.

The truth was Dean was paralyzed by his own brain. He couldn't detangle himself from the black void of wishing he'd destroyed himself instead of the rest of the world. Those harmful thoughts coiled around him like vines and choked away his ability to speak out for the good of others. The vines held him down in a seductive desire to drift into unconsciousness. He knew it wasn't like himself. He hated staying put in any place too long. The desire to drink wasn't even there anymore. Trying to focus on the conversation going on in the car seemed to exhaust him too. It wasn't right. He had to do something.

"Dean," beckoned Sam, cutting into his thoughts.

"Yeah, sorry."

"Leona asked you a question."

Dean's eyes shifted in the rear view mirror to her trusting face.

"I asked you what my people can do to help stop this Darkness thing." The hard line of her mouth suggested a determination that wasn't going to be easily dissuaded.

"I ... I don't know," Dean replied honestly. "Nobody's ever heard of this thing before. I don't think anybody knows how to stop it."

"Granny Betty might know something."

"Who?" Sam and Dean asked simultaneously.

"Ozark witches are nothing to mess around with. You won't find any more cunning women than the ones in the hills around here."

"Your grandmother is a witch?" asked Castiel.

Leona shook her head hard as if the idea was ridiculous. "No, no. Granny Betty isn't anybody's grandmother. She's not old enough. I might even be older than her, really. We call her Granny Betty because we've always called the women in her family Granny This or Granny That. It's about the respect you show your local cunning women."

"So, wait," Sam cut in with furrowed brows, "you already know about witches and demons and stuff?"

"Mostly." She shrugged. "Why do you think I took it in stride when you told this cockeyed story about Heaven, Hell, the Mark of Cain, and The Darkness? I don't understand everything but I know enough from Granny Betty to not question things I can't see."

"Do you think she made it through the storm?" asked Sam.

"Oh, yeah. If anybody made it, she did. Trust me, guys. If you're gonna talk to anyone about The Darkness around these parts, it should be her." Leaning up behind Dean, she pointed over his right shoulder. "It's that street up there if you can get around those trees. Oh, no. Look at that. I know those trees are over a hundred years old and they're torn out of the ground right down to the roots." Worrying for her family had Leona tipped forward with her fingertips pressed to her mouth, discussion about Granny Betty instantly put out of her mind.

Steering carefully around downed power lines and overturned trees, Dean kept his skepticism to himself. Witches were nothing but demon worshiping bored housewives in his estimation and their spells were always the grossest he'd ever encountered. He knew Leona meant to help but he'd never met a witch he liked. None of them had any real power source coming from within like other respectable supernatural creatures. Getting into bed with demons, both figuratively and literally, only led to blood, death, and more souls harvested for Hell. So he kept his mouth shut rather than traumatize the woman any more. For all any of them knew, she was about to find out she had no family left. Then what? They couldn't very well leave her and the baby there on an empty street running close to the Missouri River.

Eventually Dean managed to get the Impala pointed in the right direction. He rolled along slowly, eyes scanning both sides of the residential street for signs of life. Silence fell over everyone in the car. They seemed to be holding their collective breath as they took in splintered wood frame houses sometimes leveled completely or still standing with ruptured wounds opening rooms and scattering personal possessions.

"Look," said Sam, his soft voice breaking the tension, "there are X paint marks on the piles of rubble. See the numbers? They were doing that in New Orleans after Katrina to show which places had dead people and which were clear."

"Except there are no bodies," Dean put in as they moved into a region of the neighborhood in better condition.

"They're marking how many are missing. There appears to be some organization here," added Castiel. "Or there was organization. It doesn't look like an occupied area now. Wait." The angel stiffened beside Dean and squinted into the distance. "That cluster of houses up there. I detect multiple human souls. Drive that way, Dean."

"You got it," he said, giving the car a little more gas.

A bend in the road revealed a buttery yellow wood frame house built like farmhouses at the turn of the twentieth century. The sight sent Leona into a fit of relief, excitement, and recognition as she nearly bounced right out of the Impala before Dean put on the brakes. Apparently her mother's home still stood, though it had taken a beating that had him a little nervous about what they'd find indoors. Just because the house still existed didn't mean there weren't casualties. Leona's own farmhouse in Kansas still stood - barely - but it was there in spite of The Darkness rooting out her husband's blackened soul.

Leona leaped from the backseat with only a quick backwards glance and a plea for Sam to watch her baby. He nodded, already unbuckling Elizabeth from her car seat while Castiel bounded across the yard after her. Apparently he shared Dean's reservations about what she might find once she opened that front door.

"Momma!" she shouted before she hit the porch. "Macy! Edward!"

Just as Dean set foot on the porch with Castiel and Leona, the long black barrel of a shotgun poked through a shattered hole in the window beside the front door. A steady hand held that weapon. Dean saw it immediately and grabbed Leona's elbow, all but throwing her behind the bulk of his body before she could get shot. Castiel raised his hands and took a step forward, unafraid of the possibility of a bullet blasting through his body.

"Who's there? State your business!" The voice belonged to an older woman trying to sound tough and intimidating.

Dean leaned toward the window. "Ma'am, we're looking for--"

"--Jesus, Mom, put the gun away! It's me! It's Leona!"

"Leona?" The muzzle of the shotgun shook and shifted as its handler took in the shock. "Oh my Lord, it's you!"

The shotgun withdrew and the front door swung open almost in the same heartbeat as a tiny woman appeared, arms outstretched. Leona shoved Dean out of the way and flew into her mother's embrace just as a herd of small children materialized from hiding places within the house. A clump of humanity blocked the way inside as the family reunited. Tears streamed through rapid questions about what happened and whether their loved ones were accounted for in Missouri. Not everyone made it from what Dean gleaned in the chaos but Leona seemed too overcome with relief that her children were still alive to let the bad news penetrate.

For a few minutes, Castiel, Sam, and Dean lingered in the yard to give the family some privacy after such a harrowing nine days. Sam held onto baby Elizabeth in some awkwardness, though he let her gum down the buttons on his flannel shirt.

Silently, Castiel slipped his hand into Dean's and kissed his cheek with the private whispering: "And so it begins. You've planted the seeds of hope in this new world. This family will always know you as the man who brought them back together." Another kiss allowed Castiel's point to break through the shell of guilt and sorrow around Dean's soul. "You're still the Dean I love. Don't forget that."


	5. Chapter 5

Two days of rest in Shelly Callahan's house wasn't very restful surrounded by so many of Leona's wild children who believed everything to be a grand adventure. Their innocence ruptured any tenuous bubble of healing Dean tried to build around himself. He hardly spoke, and for once, he was thankful Castiel could read him so well without uttering a word. Of course his brother tried to get him talking again as he naturally would but Dean's depression seeped so far into his chest that he hadn't the slightest idea of how to cleanse it. How could he explain that kind of paralysis to Sam or even Castiel?

On the morning of the second day, Dean found it harder to get out of bed than the day before. He rolled over and stretched a hand over an empty pillow, which drew him into consciousness if only to find out where Castiel had gone. The angel never slept and they hadn't even begun crossing the bridge of a physical relationship beyond kissing and holding each other, but Castiel was never far away. Waking to an empty bed jarred Dean. He sat up on his elbow and rubbed his eyes.

Before he could open his mouth to call out for Castiel, the angel appeared, clumsy and cautious as he pushed open the bedroom door with his foot. A tray came into the room balanced in Castiel's hands. Dean sat up fully, stomach rolling with hunger.

"Don't tell me you've taken up cooking," he said in a voice thick with sleep.

Castiel gave him an incredulous look as he placed the tray on the empty side of the bed. "Maybe when I was human I could have managed cooking but I have no taste for food now." He sat on the edge of the bed too. "That's not entirely accurate. I have too much of a taste for food. I taste it right down to individual molecules and that, love, makes it so overwhelming that I can't put it in my mouth. It's an occupational hazard in the kitchen."

Poking at the pancakes, Dean leaned over the tray and sniffed the air. "If you didn't mojo up some hot food with those magic fingers, then who did?"

"Shelly. Didn't you go into her kitchen?"

"No."

That perplexed Castiel for a moment but he nodded anyway. "Shelly has a hearth circa 1830. This house is well-made and old for human standards. She's feeding a number of local survivers outside in her yard twice a day too." He glanced around the room. "I noticed many of the houses in this part of the country are old, which isn't so strange if you remember most of the people who settled here came from New England."

"Uh-huh." Dean glazed over somewhat, content to simply listen to the soothing monotone of Castiel's gravelly voice. A thought occurred to him as they fell into momentary silence. "Is this gonna be a thing now, you calling me love? You've been doing it since we got here."

The angel inclined his head. "Do you dislike it?"

"No," Dean replied quietly. "I just never hung around long enough for pet names to start popping up. I dunno what--"

"--You don't know what it means to be loved properly. I'm aware. Remember I don't either. We'll learn together. But, Dean, my condition is I'm not willing to hide it away behind closed doors and I think that might be your inclination. It's not going to happen. Heaven completely severed ties with me, so I've been doing a lot of thinking while looking after you these last two weeks. You're going to eat and sleep and you're going to let me love you in the open because this world is going to be rebuilt wiped clean of the prejudices of the past." As he spoke, Castiel unrolled the linen napkin and handed Dean the silverware. "Now eat Shelly's pancakes or she'll come up here checking you for sickness. You've hardly eaten a thing since we arrived."

"You're bossy," murmured Dean through a crooked smile.

"I'm figuring out who I am," Castiel said.

Something about the tone Castiel used struck Dean as faintly uncertain but it didn't bleed through enough to warrant poking around in it. They were all going through internal battles in the wake of the world crumbling almost overnight. If Dean didn't like people poking around his depression, he didn't think Castiel would want people poking around his troubles either. He ate his pancakes without tasting much, still hoping for the day when his desire for food would reach some kind of human balance.

Upon coming down to the country kitchen an hour later, Dean found Sam hunched over a map stretched across a rustic kitchen table. Leona stood nearby pointing out the country roads that would apparently take them an hour and a half southeast near a town called St. James. It seemed Sam made the executive decision the night before to pay a visit to the witch known as Granny Betty.

"I thought she was in Sullivan but Mom says it's St. James," said Leona as she wiped syrup from the nearest child's chin with her bare hand. "Come on, Eddie. You know better. Use your fork."

"Sit, sit," Shelly ordered as she propelled Dean into an empty chair. "You drink coffee, boy?"

"Yes, ma'am," Dean replied.

"At least somebody around here's got some manners. Leona handed out breakfast this morning without giving anybody outside any napkins. Can you imagine? Wicked storm or not, I refuse to rebuild this county without some semblance of civilized folk."

"Mom, you'd take in every stray in Missouri if you could. Who do you think's gonna have to wash all those civilized napkins?" Leona huffed with an eye roll and one fist planted on her hip.

That was funny to Dean, listening to Shelly rattle on as she bustled around the kitchen while a loaded shotgun leaned up against the wall beside the back door. He noticed a box of ammunition on the kitchen counter between a jug of syrup and a loaf of bread dough left out to rise before baking. Missouri civilization appeared to be defined as yes ma'am, please, and thank you, along with no strangers on my land and pass the ammunition. Somehow Dean respected the honesty in that. Shelly was a tiny woman but she could easily lead the entire county into war if she chose.

"It might be a good idea to watch your food supplies for now," suggested Sam, hanging over the map like a gargoyle. "We don't know when food shortages will really start affecting things."

"I've got a whole garden of vegetables right out that window," Shelly assured, "and I'm planning on doubling my garden with the next rotation. You sure you don't wanna take one of my shotguns on the road to see Granny Betty? Who knows what's out there. People turn into raving beasts when a panic hits."

"No, thanks. We're well armed," promised Sam.

A bright, rare smile bloomed on Shelly's face. "I knew I liked you boys."

"Is it really that necessary to go see this witch two hours out of our way?" Dean couldn't stop the faint disgust in the way he pronounced the word witch.

They argued over it for more than an hour until Castiel stepped in as the tiebreaker. Sam pointed out that they had no leads on The Darkness and they weren't going to stumble onto any leads without electricity, phones, or wifi to help them. He said Granny Betty was a viable resource at the moment and they should question her before going back to Lebanon. Dean argued that witches could never be trusted, they had no real power of their own, and they were just as likely to stumble onto the demon who bargained her soul. At that point, a rather offended Leona piped up and swore on all of her children than Granny Betty would never make any demon deals, that her power as a cunning woman was inherited. In the end, Castiel took their side and said they should at least question her about what she might know concerning the state of the world.

Even as they said goodbye to Leona and her family the next day, Dean still had reservations but he begrudgingly admitted that Sam and Castiel were right. If they didn't go pay a visit to Granny Betty, then where would they go? Where would they find a lead? As desperate as Dean was to defeat The Darkness for good, he knew they had to be intelligent about it. The Darkness was nothing like the enemies they'd taken on before. It had no face and no way to communicate with that he knew of, while everyone who had some awareness of it became adamant that there was no way to kill it. Not even God could. He had to lock it away instead. So, at best, the best way to deal with the situation was to find a way to put it back in its cage, much like the way they did with Lucifer years ago. Hopefully they wouldn't have to sacrifice themselves the way Sam did to put Lucifer where he belonged.

Standing by the Impala, Dean flipped his car keys back and forth in his hand while he waited for the others to say goodbye to Leona's family. One of her children, the little girl called Macy, stared up at him with an innocent tilt to her head that reminded him a little bit of Castiel.

"Hey," he said as he wiggled his fingers at her. "I left some candy for you guys on the kitchen counter. You're probably not gonna be able to get any more for a while so eat it slow, okay?"

Macy put her little hands on her hips as she stared up at him. She didn't say anything about the candy like most kids would but instead watched him like watching something marvelous and rare. Dean shifted uncomfortably. Then she began to speak. "My grandma says you're gonna protect us all from the big black thing that killed my daddy." When he gaped at her in stunned silence, Macy giggled. "Grandma's wrong, you know."

"Is she?" Dean asked.

"Yeah, it's not you that'll save us. You gotta have that little black-haired girl and she's gonna do it." His bewilderment must have been apparent because Macy huffed an impatient sigh and rolled her eyes. "You know! The little girl following you around. Don't you see her too? I played with her yesterday on my swings. She said she hoped the big black thing wouldn't rip down my swings because she wanted to play on them when you got here. She's a real nice girl. Can she come back and play with me soon?"

Goose flesh rippled along Dean's forearms as Macy described a child he'd never seen in his life. All measure of alarm bells went off in his head. She sounded like she was talking about a ghost, yet there were no other telltale signs. No cold spots. No flickering lights - but then again, there wasn't any electricity anymore for ghosts to play with when they manifested.

"You played with a little girl that came here with me?" Treading carefully, Dean crouched down onto Macy's level. "Can you tell me anything about her? What does she look like?"

"I said she's got black hair!" Macy replied with all the impatience of a child having to describe something obvious. "She's got blue eyes and freckles too. Look, she's just over there. Why don't you talk to her yourself?"

Dean followed her chubby arm as it pointed to the far corner of the yard where part of a ripped tree still emerged from the ground. There was nothing there that he could see, of course. No little girl with black hair, blue eyes, and freckles. Just shredded bushes and tree debris that needed to be dragged off and turned into mulch. He chewed the fleshy inner wall of his cheek, thinking. Millions of people were dead because of him. That was bound to cause an influx of haunting activity, especially since they didn't know the implications of dying without Death around to handle everything.

Turning back to Macy, he fought to keep his expression impassive. "Can you tell me her name?"

The question perplexed Macy. Wrinkles stretched across her little forehead and she looked frustrated the longer it took to get an answer. Somehow she seemed to be communicating with whatever she saw standing over in that corner of the yard.

"You haven't given her a name yet."

"Why me?" he asked.

"Because it's your job. You're her daddy. Don't you know anything?"

Walls closed in around Dean even though they were outside. Blood thrummed passed his ears so loudly that he could count individual beats of his heart in those strange, terrible last seconds before passing out from pain or shock. He had to have heard Macy wrong. There was no child of his that he knew of and certainly no child in ghost form.

As if sending his silent distress, Castiel strolled around the hood of the Impala as Macy trotted off to join her siblings. He crouched before Dean and dipped his head far to one side as if it'd give him a better vantage.

"Are you unwell, Dean?"

Through the hollow distance in Castiel's voice passing through Dean's stunned mind, he realized blue eyes and dark hair were right in front of him. The child Macy described looked like Castiel. What did that mean? Was there a ghost attached to Jimmy Novak's body? But even if that was the case, why would she tell Macy that Dean was her father? Nothing added up and Dean couldn't get himself around the idea of a ghost following them around. He was used to helping other people with that problem. But when it was yourself enduring an attachment, it felt entirely different.

Dean swallowed. He hasn't answered Castiel yet and the angel became alarmed enough to take his pulse at the wrist and the throat while checking his pupils. It took a second to pull himself together. He stood and brushed off his sleeves even though there wasn't anything on them.

"I'm good, Cas," he said quietly.

"Something scared you," replied Castiel.

By then, Sam caught on to something off in their trio. "Hey, what's the matter?" he asked over the roof of the car.

"We'll talk about it later," Dean said in a tone that suggested it wasn't up for discussion. With a smile suddenly plastered on his face, he grasped the nearest person - Leona - in a quick embrace. "Thanks for letting us crash here for a few days."

"Oh, please. It was the least I could do." Leona clutched her middle son around his shoulders. "You guys gave me my family back."

"Well, we know family is everything," Sam said.

Clearing his throat, Dean dropped his tone to a serious level. "I think you need to grab all the seeds you can find as soon as you can. Plant all the food you can grow here. I'm guessing things are gonna get hairy once the canned stuff is gone. Try to get more cattle too. Make sure you have good guns and secure your house. Just trust me on this one, okay?"

"We're Missouri folks," said Leona through a knowing smile, "and we know how to take care of our own. You guys come on back when you pass through here again. There's always a hot meal here for you."

"Can't say no to that," Dean said as he hugged her more sincerely that time. "Take care."

"You too."

"Don't worry, boys. My mother came through the Depression without grocery stores or electricity." Shelly, the tiny matriarch of the family, stood on the porch with her shotgun resting across her shoulders and one hand never far from the trigger. "I'd be a poor example of Callahan blood if I didn't learn anything from her. My daughter will be fine. My grandkids will thrive." She jerked her chin at the horizon. "That black storm's gonna have to try a lot harder to get at my kin. People don't scare me either. Don't you worry on our account. You boys look after yourselves and bring those hides back here in once piece. We're not going anywhere. This is Callahan land."

She looked like a cowboy standing there with her shotgun stretched wide over the back of her shoulders and her hips squared off for confrontation. Each man in the Winchester clan - suddenly Dean knew clans were going to be important in the new world - understood without a doubt that Shelly Callahan would go down shooting to protect her clan. They could leave knowing Leona and her brood of small children would survive.

Together they piled into the Impala once more after Dean filled the gas tank from a red container in the trunk. He had little to say while Sam navigated from the passenger seat with the folded paper map. Castiel chattered on about agricultural lessons he'd picked up centuries ago when he'd been sent to England on angel assignment. That chatter got Sam going and between the two of them, Dean had no torturous silence to allow in thoughts of regret and self-pity. There had to be some improvement in his condition, however, because he felt himself shifting from total apathy to annoyance with his black mood. Feeling something, feeling anything at all had to mean he wasn't a lost cause. Maybe he could hold onto his anger. It was better than sinking to the bottom of a swamp of nothingness.

Catching a glimpse of Castiel's dark hair and blue eyes in the rear view mirror chilled the back of Dean's neck in a moment of fear. He wondered if the child's ghost was in the car with them right then and there. Simultaneously, he wondered if it was best to tell them about it or if he should let it go for now. The last thing they needed was a minor ghost hunt to distract them from hunting and ending The Darkness wherever it lurked on the planet. If they had to go to Dubai or South Africa or Antarctica, they were going to end it once and for all. Dean was going to undo the damage he'd done and redeem his soul. Did he even have a soul left to save?

At least going to see the witch in the Missouri wilderness seemed to distract Sam and Castiel from the momentary panic Dean had suffered because of the ghost. He had no desire to have that conversation just yet. There was time to deal with a ghost. Maybe there wasn't even a ghost to deal with at all. There was just as good of a chance that Macy was imagining things. She could have been thinking of an imaginary friend. Even Sam had one of those when he was a kid.

They drove onward to St. James, Missouri, taking loops around wheat fields when the roads were too damaged to navigate. Dean cringed at the damage he was doing to the Impala and he knew cars weren't going to be practical for a long time. Maybe years. Or decades. It was intimidating trying to imagine how many resources and how much nonexistent manpower it was going to take to rebuild all of the infrastructure Sam kept talking about back home in the bunker. It took being out in the ruptured concrete roads and the staggering number of dead simply vanished from crumbled buildings for Dean to understand just how long it was going to take, how far back in time the earth went in just three days of The Darkness. His brother was without a doubt the more intelligent of the two. Dean never counted himself on Sam's level. While he knew he had what it took to defeat The Darkness, he knew Sam had what it took to guide the remainder of humanity into the new world. Where did that leave Dean? Where would his new place be in the new world once it was safe from The Darkness? Again he glanced through the rear view mirror at Castiel's serene profile gazing out of the window.

"Take that road," Sam said, breaking off from conversation with Castiel. "We're headed for the signs taking us to Maramec Spring Park. Yeah, right there. Head into St. James. And then head southeast."

"Lemme get this straight. A witch lives in a state park with campgrounds and fishing and shit?" Dean asked dubiously.

"Maramec Springs are known to be a sacred place. People settled the hills in the nineteenth century but the settlement shifted over to St. James soon afterward. I'm guessing the witch's family was part of the original settlers and she never left. Ancestral lands are extremely important to them." Castiel rattled off his knowledge in that comforting monotone he'd always used.

"Not as important as making demon deals," muttered Dean.

A faint smile showed Castiel's amusement. "Not every witch derives power from demonic sources."

"You're kidding," said Dean.

"I didn't want to frighten the Callahans by saying too much but yes. Some witches - very very few - come from power inherited in the blood and have nothing to do with Hell's politics. If this Granny Betty is one of them, she will be a powerful ally for our cause."

"That's why you wanted to come see her," Sam guessed, looking into the backseat.

Castiel nodded. "I've never actually met a blood witch."

"Neither have I," Dean put in, "and I had no clue there was such a thing out there. Dad never left any lore on it. There's nothing in the Men of Letters either."

"I've only heard of twelve natural with bloodlines," he said. "Out of seven billion people, twelve bloodlines is a distinct minority."

"Maybe she'll let me start a case file," said Sam to himself. A glimmer in his eye revealed a man who truly loved his job of research and gathering information for posterity. Quietly he added, "I don't know who I'll leave the new research to but I don't really want to stop building the Men of Letters."

"Hunters don't die easily. You know what they say. Cockroaches, Cher, Keith Richards, and hunters will be what's left after the end of the world," Dean said.

It was disheartening the further they drove into the state park and caught sight of the Meramec River. It was the perfect place to camp and fish in happier times. The distant acrid smell of fire suggested people had taken up residence in the huge circles of campsites formerly offered by the park service. They passed an abandoned forest ranger truck left diagonally on the dirt road as if the park official inside skidded to a stop when he or she saw The Darkness approach.

Dean hated seeing the grim monuments to the end of so many lives.

Instead, he spoke just to block out the black thoughts in his own head. "Where should I go?"

"Um...." Sam unfolded another section of the map across his lap and traced the road with his fingertip. "Stay on this road for a mile and a half. It'll come to a fork. One way goes toward the visitors center and the other goes up into the hills where the old frontier settlement was. Leona said she lived up there."

As he drove on the bumpy, uneven dirt road, Dean popped a tape into the radio more out of habit than anything else. He hadn't wanted to listen to music since before the Mark of Cain took hold of him, at least not the way he used to live and breathe that old pile of outdated music. In the worst of times, he could put on Zeppelin and escape into it without really trying. Now it only provided some noise so he couldn't hear the destructive thoughts rattling about his brain.

Tree branches stripped of leaves in the violent storm gave Dean the impression of a place that was once beautiful and isolated from the city life in St. Louis just over an hour or two away. He thought he even sensed the remnants of souls from two hundred years ago flitting between the trees. People came to Missouri in covered wagons with hopes of owning their own land where nobody could dictate their lives. Part of him respected it all the more now that they were facing a society void of overpopulation, mechanical pollution, and an overbearing government. He understood the desire to escape government control but at least a skeletal governing body was needed to keep order. It was a lot harder to swallow the idea of life without electricity or - as soon as the gas ran supply ran dry - without a car. Keeping his car running to chase The Darkness moved up to the top priority on his to do list as he analyzed the way life had to be now.

"Follow that smoke column," said Castiel, interrupting his thoughts.

Sure enough, a column of chimney smoke rose over the canopy of naked trees and pointed the way toward a blip of civilization. The witch known as Granny Betty kept a roomy and comfortable cabin that, if Dean didn't know it was 2016, would have tricked anyone into believing came straight from pioneer days. Scattered on both sides of the narrow road - really a trail - were the remains of the original settlers' cabins. Stone chimneys stood like tombstones marking the old homes along with rectangular holes in the ground displaying those strong enough and wealthy enough to have a root cellar.

The Impala's brakes squeaked with the strain required to park on such a steep incline. Dean thought the hill resembled more of a small mountain. It reminded him of the Appalachian range which stood further east in Tennessee and that region. All in all, it was a beautiful place to build a home if a person didn't mind living way, way off the grid. He knew it was even more beautiful when the forest wasn't wrecked by violent storms.

"I smell roasting meat," commented Castiel as they got out of the car and made their way toward the two and a half story gabled cabin. "A lot of roasting meat."

Dean's mouth instantly salivated. "Oh man. We haven't had real meat in two weeks."

Presently, a dark figure appeared in the doorway. She wiped her hands clean on a well-used apron that spread over an ample blue gingham skirt. Dean nearly stopped dead in his tracks thinking he was looking at a pioneer ghost. The woman took measure of the Winchester trio through dark almond eyes. Eastern wind swept pieces of black hair across her forehead and clung to the full shape of her dark rose lips. Absently she pushed her hair back. There was no way she was old enough to be a grandmother. She wasn't even old enough to be their mother.

"It's about time you showed up, boys. Almost overcooked your supper trying to keep it warm." Her hand fluttered over the threshold. "Don't get any mud on my floor. I just scrubbed them clean. Especially you." A thin finger pointed straight at Dean. "You're the sloppy brother."

The three of them stopped in the yard, exchanging bewildered glances. Sam shrugged at Dean's silent questions. Only Castiel gave them calm looks as if he expected exactly that sort of welcome.

Dean took the lead. "Wait, you knew we were coming? I thought the phones were knocked out everywhere." He studied her. "Are you Granny Betty?"

The woman smiled through the left half of her mouth, watching them without answering any questions. She let the apron fall from her hands. Her skirts swirled as she turned back into the cabin, looking just like every pioneer woman Dean had seen in every Western movie meticulously catalogued back at the bunker. The rational part of his brain tried to make the case that she really was a ghost. Nothing about her little piece of land there outside of St. James, Missouri, resembled the twenty-first century. A cow mooed somewhere behind the house, rousing the three of them from their confused daze.

"Daylight's burning, boys!" shouted Granny Betty from inside the cabin. "You've got chores after I feed your bodies!"

"Chores?" Dean said in a secretive tone to Sam.

"Blood witches are known to require services or goods in exchange for their help," Castiel murmured. "Essentially she's just told us that she'll help us. We have to do our part, though."

"You sure there are no demons here?" Sam asked.

"None," he confirmed. "Not even sulfur residue."

"All right," Dean said with a resigned shrug, "let's do what she asks then. Like Sammy said. This is our only lead right now."


End file.
